Land rights, particularly in the context of
developing countries, are inextricably linked
with the right to food, the right to work and
a host of other human rights. In many instances,
the right to land is bound up with a communitys
identity, its livelihood and thus its very sur­vival.

For farmers, peasants and fisherfolk, land
is a vital component of a particular way of
life. For this reason, peasants and poor farmers
are generally opposed to the conversion of vast
tracts of land for commercial monocropping,
such as for sugar, tobacco, rubber, palm oil,
etc. [1] Fisherfolk are usually
opposed to large infrastructure and commer­cial
projects along rivers, lakes and coasts because
of pollution, dispossession of land, limi­tations
on access to traditional livelihood and other
disruptive changes that threaten their survival. [2]

In India recently thousands of subsistence
farmers, traditional fisherfolk, workers, womens
groups and villagers protested en masse
against the World Trade Organi­zations
policies. The protests were partly sparked
off by the suicides of 450 peasant farmers in
the states of Andra Pradesh and Karnataka.
In India, more than 600 mil­lion people-70%
of the population-are desperately poor and depend
directly on the land and environment for survival.
"It is the life resource of the majority
of our people whose subsistence directly depends
on the water, forests and the land. It is about
justice. 3

Land
A Way of Life in the Philippines

"Many years ago, the government
made a study and decided that four dams
should be built in the Chico River and
Pasiw River in Kalinga and in Bontoc province.
There is one dam that is to be built at
Bontoc, Bontoc, and they call it Chico
I; another dam at Sandanga, Bontoc, Chico
II; another dam at Basao, Kalinga, that
is Chico III; and the biggest at Lubuangan,
Kalinga, Chico IV. These dams are supposed
to develop 70,000 kilowatts of electric
power. They are also supposed to irrigate
the entire Cagayan Valley area. And so
from the purely economic point of view,
these projects sound as if they were economic
development. That is one side of the matter.

"But now, let us look at the other
side. To go through with these four dams
will mean that you will take out 5,000
Bontoc and Kalinga families from their
homes; you will take them out from where
they have lived from time immemorial and
put them in the lowlands where they will
die a slow death. It means that we will
destroy 1,500 of our rice terraces.

"But more important than the destruction
of homes, more important than the displacement
of people, is the fact that we are being
forced to change the way of life of people
who are genuinely Filipinos. We Christians
of the lowlands proudly call ourselves
Filipino. But the truth of the matter
is: The true Filipinos are our brothers
in Kalinga and Bontoc. They have maintained
their culture, their way of life, their
beliefs, their religion, for more than
one thousand years. They were already
here long before the Spaniards arrived.
And now because of progress, they are
to be uprooted and brought to the lowlands.
One of the most important scenic wonders
of the world-our rice terraces-are going
to be in part destroyed. But more valuable
than these are the religious beliefs of
the people of Bontoc and Kalinga.

"For them the big trees and forests
in their environment are their churches.
They pray there, beseeching help from
their God. The spirits of their ancestors
are alive, buried in their ancestral grounds.
The entire history of their race is written
in their rice terraces. And so these people
are prepared to fight to the death rather
than give up their land." 4

For the urban poor on the other hand, land
is more than simply living space. In most in­stances,
the urban poor live in communities that have
been settled for a substantial period of time.
Development of the community includes access
to a means of livelihood, to edu­cation, to
health care, all of which stand to be disrupted
in cases of eviction.

It is not difficult to see why historically
land rights have been a flash point and landlessness
invariably a cause of social unrest.

Feudal ex­ploi­tation, the process of colonization
and the passing of natural resources to state
control, encroachments by private com­mercial
interests and now glob­alization-these are the
main historical factors that have defined contemporary
conflicts involving land and land rights. It
is perhaps the historical im­portance of land
that has made the question of the rights to
land a very broad and complex subject matter.

The Muslim rebellion in the Philip­pines, the
Palestinians struggle for the return of
their homeland, the Zapatista move­ment in Mexico
and many other conflicts that are very much
part of todays news, involve land. Indeed,
issues of access to land and land security con­tinue
to have an impact on a very significant part
of the worlds population who still depend
on land ac­cess and security for their subsistence
and livelihood.

"For the billions of the worlds
rural poor, land security must be seen as a
necessary precon­dition for the realization
of other internationally protected human rights.5 Despite
this, land rights issues have rarely been addressed
from an international human rights perspective.
This is in part due to the fact that land is­sues
are very complex. Land rights do not just pertain
to the right of ownership. They also refer to
access, use, possession and oc­cupation of land,
and security of such use, possession or tenure.
Local and national landowning and land use sys­tems
vary con­siderably from country to coun­try
and, frequently, within countries. As a re­sult,
identi­fying and reaching agreement on princi­ples
and standards that can usefully be applied across
borders and systems have proved to be very difficult.

International and Regional Human Rights
Law and Land Rights

Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights states:

1. Everyone has the right to own property
alone as well as in association with others.

2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of
his property.

The reference to property rights was altogether
dropped in the two human rights Covenants adopted
by the United Nations in 1966. In addressing
the right to be free from hunger, article 11
of the ICESCR makes only one indirect reference
to land when it encourages states parties to
develop or reform "agrarian systems in
such a way as to achieve the most efficient
devel­opment and utilization of natural resources.
(See Module 12 on this point.)

The First Protocol to the European Convention
on Human Rights states:

No one shall be deprived of his possessions
except in the public interest and subject to
the conditions provided for by law and by the
general principles of international law.

However, these provisions shall not "in
any way impair the right of a State to enforce
such laws as it deems necessary to control the
use of property in accordance with the general
in­terest or to secure the payment of taxes
or other contributions or penalties.6

Article 21 of the American Convention on Human
Rights states:

Everyone has the right to the use and enjoyment
of his property. The law may subor­dinate such
use and enjoyment to the interest of society
. . . No one shall be deprived of his property
except upon payment of just compensation, for
reasons of public util­ity or social interest
and in the cases and according to the forms
of established law.7

Article 14 of the African Charter on Human
and Peoples Rights reads:

The right to property shall be guaranteed.
It may only be encroached upon in the in­terest
of public need or in the general interest of
the community and in accordance with the provisions
of appropriate laws.8

Article 21(2) says, "In case of spoliation
the dispossessed people shall have the right
to the lawful recovery of its property as well
as to an adequate compensation.

United Nations declarations more specific to
land include the Declaration on Social Progress,
adopted by the General Assembly in 1969, which
recognizes the social function of property,
including land, and calls for forms of land
ownership that ensure equal rights to property
for all.9

Of the UN specialized agencies, the Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Inter­national
Labour Organization (ILO) have given most attention
to land rights concerns, in ei­ther binding
conventions or nonbinding declarations. At
its World Conference on Agrar­ian Reform and
Rural Development in 1979, the FAO adopted a
Declaration of Principles and Programme of Action,
referred to as "The Peasants Charter,
a major section of which is concerned with the
reorganization of land tenure. It advocates
the imposition of land ceilings in countries
where substantial reorganization of land tenure
and land redistribution to land-less peasants
and smallholders is needed as part of a rural
development strategy and as a means to redistribution
of power. Other sections of the charter are
concerned with tenancy reform, regulation of
changes in customary tenure and with community
control over natural resources.10

Land Tenure, Livelihood
and the Environment

In Centre for Environmental Law, WWF-I
v. Union of India and others,11 the petitioners,
World Wide Fund for Nature, approached
the Supreme Court of India by way of a
public interest petition in 1995. All
over the country, state governments had
issued notifications of intent under the
Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, demarcating
areas for wildlife sanctuaries and national
parks. However, the process for assessing
claims for compensation of those who would
be dispossessed was not being undertaken
and as a result, the final proclamation
notifications under section 21 of the
act were not being made. At the request
of the petitioners, the court issued a
blanket direction in August 1997 to all
the state governments to complete the
compensation procedure and issue final
notifications within one year.12

The results have been catastrophic. The
court did not consider that thousands
of people are dependent for their livelihood
on the forests and grasslands falling
within the demarcated areas, and many
others live there. The recording of usufruct
rights over forest areas was last undertaken
a hundred years ago when India was under
colonial rule, and thus a large number
of people who are exercising traditional
usufruct rights are not able to produce
documentary proof of such rights. Their
claims cannot possibly be settled in a
year. Nor did the court examine the current
debates within activist and academic circles
questioning the conservation model on
which the existing law is based, which
excludes rather than involves people in
conservation. The state governments have
used the Supreme Court's directions to
advance their own agendas of evicting
whole communities from these areas, often
only to make way for large industrial
projects. In many areas no claims for
compensation were filed by the people
likely to be affected as state governments
short-circuited claims procedures under
the guise of meeting the deadlines issued
by the Supreme Court.

One affected area is the Great Himalayan
National Park in the Kullu district of
Himachal Pradesh. The GHNP comprises mainly
high altitude pastures on which more than
11,000 people depend for their survival.
These rural communities have traditional
grazing rights in the alpine pastures
and each year an estimated 35,000 goats
and sheep are taken into the pastures
during the warm summer months. The people
also extract medicinal herbs and plants
from this area, to meet the needs of traditional
medicine systems, as well as for trade.
In pursuance of the Supreme Court's orders,
the government of Himachal Pradesh issued
a final notification on 21 May 1999 declaring
the boundaries of the national park, and
forbidding further exercise of traditional
usufruct rights in the area. Compensation
was given to only 312 families, since
the state relied upon records of rights
made during the British Raj 110 years
ago. No independent inquiry into current
rights exercise was undertaken.

A further twist in the tale arises out
of the Parbati Hydel project being constructed
by the government in an area adjoining
the park. One part of the area demarcated
for the park, which formed part of the
core area, was "left out" from
the final notification in order to make
way for a surge tunnel, which would feed
the Parbati project. Thus, while the government
has excluded rural communities from any
participation in the conservation of this
ecologically rich area, which these very
communities have preserved over centuries,
it has not thought twice about allowing
so-called "developmental interests"
to have their way. The tragedy is that
the Supreme Court and the state have refused
to hear the voices of these rural communities.
An application by several NGOs that are
working with communities dependent on
these areas, seeking permission to be
heard by the court, has been rejected.

ILO Convention No. 117, The Social Policy (Basic
Aims and Standards) Convention of 1962, covers
measures to improve the standard of living for
agricultural producers. They are to include control
of the alienation of land to nonagriculturalists,
regard for customary land rights and the supervision
of tenancy arrangements.

The ILOs Indigenous and Tribal Peoples
Convention No. 169 of 1989 is a key instrument
in the evolution of concepts of land rights
in international law.13
That convention

recognizes the special relationship between
indigenous people and their lands;

requires states to adopt special measures
of protection on their behalf;

provides safeguards against the arbitrary
removal of indigenous people from their tradi­tional
land, with procedural guarantees; and

includes other provisions related to the
transmission of land rights and respect for
cus­tomary procedures.

Land Rights in Domestic Law

There are two basic principles that underlie
most national legal systems, constitutions and
domestic laws on the question of land ownership.

The first is the right of private ownership.
This right includes not only the right to use
and enjoyment, but also the right to exclude
others. Most systems of land ownership in domestic
law seek to uphold and recognize this concept
of private ownership, which gives absolute control
and exclusive rights on the basis of legal,
state-conferred ownership.

The second common and fundamental principle
underlying domestic land laws is the regalian
doctrine, which holds that all lands belong
to the state. A corollary of this principle
is that it is only by a grant from the state
that land can pass into private ownership.

One can immediately sense inevitable conflicts
between the two principles just mentioned.
Much of the struggle on the domestic legal front
has been to reform, if not change, these two
principles of land ownership, which have their
origins in most of the developing worlds
co­lonial past.

There are also a number of land ownership and
use patterns that form exceptions to, or miti­gate,
these principles. These generally fall into
three categories:

1. Land as a resource with a "social
function

2. "Time immemorial concepts and
ancestral land claims

3. Collective rights to land use and/or ownership

Social function of property principle

The social function of property principle has
been reflected in the constitutions and laws
of countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America
in recent decades. This principle is an effort
to

balance recognition of private land rights
with key matters of public interest, such
as equity. In such situations, the state
has power to expropriate private lands as
long as adequate com­pensation is pro­vided.
There may also be a ceiling put on the size
of land holdings. The box on the previous
page gives an example from South Africa.

South African Constitution
Section 25 -Property Rights

25.1 No one may be deprived of property
except in terms of law of general application,
and no law may permit arbitrary deprivation
of property.

25.2 Property may be expropriated only
in terms of law of general application
a) for a public purpose or in the public
interest; and
b) subject to compensation, the amount
of which and the time and manner of payment
of which have either been agreed to by
those affected or decided or approved
by a court.

25.3 The amount of compensation and the
time and manner of payment must be just
and equitable, reflecting an equitable
balance between the public interest and
the interest of those affected, having
regard to all relevant circumstances,
including: a) the current use of property;
b) the history of the acquisition and
use of the property; c) the market value
of the property; d) the extent of direct
state investment and subsidy in the acquisition
and beneficial capital improvement of
the property; e) the purpose of the expropriation.

The Property Clause in the South African
Constitution has serious implications
for the South African Land Reform Process.
Firstly, it protects existing property
rights and entrenches the existing property
holdings in South Africa. Secondly, in
the promotion of the Land Reform Process
the Constitution authorizes the balancing
of individual interests and the public
interest in controlling and regulating
the use of property and the distribution
of property.

South African Constitution Section
25 (4)(a)-Right to Land Reform

The public interest includes the nation's
commitment to land reform, and to reforms
to bring about equitable access to all
South Africa's natural resources.

South African National Land Policy

The current land ownership and land development
patterns strongly reflect the political
and economic conditions of the apartheid
era. Racially based land policies were
a cause of insecurity, landlessness and
poverty among the majority of black people
and a cause of inefficient land administration
and land use. The Land Reform Policy is
thus fourfold:

to redress the injustices of apartheid
 to foster national reconciliation
and stability
 to underpin economic growth
 to improve household welfare and
alleviate poverty

The Land Policy therefore has to deal
with the following in both urban and rural
areas:

 the injustices of racially based
dispossession
 the inequitable distribution of
land ownership
 the need for security of tenure
for all
 the need for sustainable use of
land
 the need for rapid release of land
for development
 the need to record and register
all rights in property
 the need to administer public land
in an effective manner

Responsibility for Land Reform

It is the responsibility of the national
government to ensure a more equitable
distribution of land, to support the work
of the Commission on Restitution of Land
Rights and to implement a program of land
tenure and land administration reform.
On the other hand it is the responsibility
of provincial governments to provide complementary
development support.

With the trend towards land privatization,
the social function of property principle has
come increasingly under attack. As a result,
the enjoyment of various ESC rights, such as
the right to work or the right to an adequate
standard of living, including the right to adequate
food, is threatened.

Ancestral domain, customary and statutory
rights to the land

The right to ancestral domain, collective ownership
of land, customary land rights and the concept
of "time immemorial possession have
been claimed as exceptions to the regalian doctrine
and private individual ownership.

In a large number of countries there are conflicts
between private land ownership and tenure provisions
allowed for under the customary law of the indigenous
peoples and those provided for by statutory
laws. In Africa, this conflict was first generated
through colonial models that tended to provide
for dual systems of ownership, with settlers
having private rights to land and indigenous
Africans enjoying communal rights. This distinction
has been maintained to greater or lesser degrees
in various countries. In Southeast Asia the
growth of the logging industry in recent years
has led to pressure on forest dwellers who until
recently had exclu­sive occupation of the land
under customary law.14

Issues of land tenure and titling have a particular
importance for indigenous peoples. The indigenous
rights movement worldwide has accepted that
indigenous peoples have the basic right to manage
their lives, development and resources in a
distinct manner within the framework of a multicultural
state. This is a "special rights
approach that links the recogni­tion and enjoyment
of these rights to a particular ethnic or cultural
identity. Such "special rights have
been approached conceptually in different ways.
One way is to argue that in­digenous peoples
have "original or "immemorial
rights to their lands and resources, in that
they never sacrificed these rights after conquest
and colonization. It is these concepts of original
and native title to land that are now driving
the indigenous rights movement in such places
as Australia and Canada. A second way is to
place the emphasis on the historical land rights
of indigenous communities, namely the ancient
land titles that were issued during the colonial
period or after independence. This approach
has been important in countries in­cluding Colombia,
Guatemala and Mexico, where ancient land titles
can be jealously guarded.

A third way is to place the emphasis on discrimination
and on the need to combat the injus­tices of
the past by adopting special measures to favor
indigenous access to the land. This third dimension
of a rights-based approach focuses not so much
on the concept of special histori­cally derived
rights as on the need to promote genuine equality
of opportunity for in­digenous peoples in economic
and social development. Thus indigenous peoples
should be specially favored in land access,
distribution and purchase programs.

Aboriginal Land Claim in South
Africa

As of early 1999 the Legal Resources
Centre in South Africa was litigating
an aboriginal land claim on behalf of
the Richtersveld community. The community
of 3,000 used to be nomadic and pastoralist
people who traditionally occupied the
Richtersveld. The land claim was held
by the state-owned diamond mine Alexkor,
which was in the process of privatization.
The LRC was negotiating for a community
equity share in the mine and to secure
the land rights of the community. It was
also working on an integrated development
plan which would provide that

 the residential land at Alexkor
should be formalized as a town;
 the irrigation land should be transferred
to an equity, which will operate for the
benefit of and include participation of
the Richtersveld and Namaqualand communities;
 the grazing land should be transferred
to the Richtersveld community as part
of the settlement of the land claim; and
 the mining land be retained by
Alexkor.

Land Rights of Women

Special attention should be paid to the right
of women to land. In many cultures and socie­ties,
women are excluded from owning property, including
land, or they do not enjoy the same rights as
the men. In marriage and family relations,
womens right to property is often subject
to the authority of the husband or father.
Ensuring equal rights to property translates
into economic empowerment and has a direct bearing
on the status of women. Denial of and/or limitations
on rights to land and discrimination against
women can be seen, for in­stance, in laws that
exclude women from inheriting land.

Even though women play a very substantial role
in agriculture in most countries around the
world, land ownership and/or land tenure systems,
whether customary or statutory, have his­torically
very often discriminated against women. The
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) recognizes
womens land rights. Article 14 of CEDAW
obliges states parties to

take all appropriate measures to eliminate
discrimination against women in rural areas
in order to ensure, on the basis of equality
of men and women, that they partici­pate in
and benefit from rural development and, in particular
. . . ensure to such women the right:

. . . (d) to obtain all types of training
and education, formal and non-formal, including
that relating to functional literacy, as well
as the benefit of all com­munity and extension
services, inter alia, in order to increase
their technical proficiency;

. . . (g) to have access to agricultural credit
and loans, marketing facilities, ap­propriate
tech­nology and equal treatment in land and
agrarian reform as well as in land resettlement
schemes . . .15

Women and Land-South
Africa

The White Paper on South African Land
Policy notes that "it is essential
that gender equity be ensured in the land
distribution and land reform programme
. . . "

Positive constitutional and policy provisions
must be seen against the background of
the acute social, economic and political
disadvantages suffered by the majority
of women in South Africa. Most rural women
are agricultural producers, cultivating
mainly subsistence crops. As a result
of apartheid, most became farm managers
when their husbands and sons were forced
into wage labor on the mines and in the
cities. Most are heads of households,
bearing the responsibility for childcare
and household maintenance in addition
to agricultural production. In keeping
the "home fires burning," they
have to put in extra hours of work carrying
water and finding wood since they do not
enjoy such infrastructural support as
electricity, piped water or other social
services. Women's position is the result
of discrimination emanating from race,
class and gender oppression and each finds
expression in relation to land.

As part of the black majority, black
women were prevented by apartheid from
owning land in 87 percent of the land
in the country. In addition, customary
laws as tampered with by apartheid prevented
women from owning land. Up until 1986
a women was not able to obtain real rights
to land without the permission of her
husband or guardian. Even though the racial
restrictions on owning land have been
lifted, because of their extreme poverty
most rural black women cannot afford to
buy land.

Women's participation in the land reform
process has not been on an equal basis
with men so far. Many of the trusts and
committees established in the land restitution
and redistribution process are still male-dominated.
The Communal Property Associations Act
of 1996 ensures equal representation of
women but the equal participation of women
is not guaranteed.

The Recognition of Customary Marriages
Bill of 1998 has been introduced to Parliament.
The proposed legislation includes measures
that bring customary law in line with
the Constitution and South Africa's international
obligations. The legislation provides
for the equal status and capacity of the
spouses and provides measures for women
to enter into contractual ownership agreements.
The legislation proposes that Section
11 (3b) of the Black Administration Act,
which regards women as perpetual minors,
be repealed.

Equity will be achieved only with the
removal of all legal, social and economic
restrictions on the participation of women.
The Land Reform Process must include the
reform of customary marriages, natural
resource management policies, and inheritance
laws where they are obstacles to women
receiving and holding rights in land.
Challenges to South Africa's Constitutional
and Land Policy Processes must thus go
well beyond reforming rights in land.

Discrimination and the Principle of Restitution

In various countries, individuals or groups
are demanding the restitution of land they believe
was unlawfully taken from them-or payment of
compensation in lieu of the land. Such claims
have been common in Central and Eastern Europe,
for example, where land had pre­viously been
subject to collectivization. Similarly, the
issue of the return of land in Israel or the
Occupied Territories to Palestinians who had
owned it has long been a bitter issue.

Basic to international human rights law are
provisions related to equality and nondiscrimi­nation.
Article 2(2) of the ICESCR, for example, provides:

The States Parties to the present Covenant
undertake to guarantee that the rights enunciated
in the present Covenant will be exercised without
discrimination of any kind as to race, colour,
sex, language, religion, political or other
opinion, national or social origin, property,
birth or other status.

According to article 6 of the International
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Racial Discrimination (ICERD):

State Parties must assure everyone within their
jurisdiction effective protection and remedies
through the competent tribunals and other State
institutions, against any acts of racial discrimination
which violate his human rights . . . as well
as the right to seek from such tribunals just
and adequate reparation or satisfaction for
any damages suffered as a result of such discrimination.16

These provisions apply to ownership of land
as well as security of tenure of land. One
of the bases on which restitution has been claimed
or provided has been discrimination-that land
had previously been taken from an individual
or group because of their racial, ethnic or
other identity.

South Africa and the
Right to Restitution

Land ownership in South Africa has long
been a source of conflict. Its history
of conquest and dispossession, of forced
removals and a racially skewed distribution,
has left it with a complex and difficult
legacy. Section 25(7) of the South African
Constitution now provides:

A person or community dispossessed
of property after June 1913 as a result
of past racially discriminatory laws
or practices is entitled, to the extent
provided by an Act of Parliament, either
to restitution of that property or to
equitable redress.

The right to restitution is guided by
principles of fairness and justice. It
is therefore important to identify the
different ways in which people have been
prejudiced through dispossession:
 dispossession leading to landlessness
 inadequate compensation for the
value of the property
 hardships which cannot be measured
in financial or material terms

A restitution claim will be accepted
for investigation where the claimant was
 dispossessed
 of a right in land
 after 19 June 1913
 under or for the object of furthering
the object of a racially discriminatory
law
 was not paid just and equitable
compensation
 was dispossessed as a result of
past racially discriminatory laws and
practices.

The claimant should have a registered
or unregistered right or interest. Such
a right may have been established by occupation
of the land for a substantial period.
It is not limited to a right recognized
by law nor to ownership rights; it may
include certain long-term tenancy rights
and other occupational rights. Recognition
is given to the fact that discriminatory
laws may have prohibited certain claimants
from obtaining legal rights on account
of their race.

Implementation of the restitutional right
through negotiation by the parties or
adjudication by the Land Claims Court
can take the following forms:
 restoration of the land from which
claimants were dispossessed
 provision of alternative land
 payment of compensation
 alternative relief, including a
package containing a combination of the
above, sharing of land or special budgetary
assistance such as services and infrastructural
development where claimants presently
live
 priority access to state resources
in the allocation and the development
of housing and land in the appropriate
development program.

The Commission on Restitution of Land
Rights was established in 1995 with a
national office and eight regional offices.
The Land Claims Court is tasked with the
responsibility of ratifying agreements
that are mediated by the commission as
well as arbitrating in cases where no
agreement can be reached. The court's
principal powers lie in the ability to
determine restitution, compensation and
rightful ownership.

Strategies and Approaches

The strategies and approaches that have been
used to protect and promote land rights are
varied and operate at different levels.

One common approach is legal reform. Land
rights activists know that unless there are
changes in the laws and institutions on land
rights, fighting for rights to land on a case-by-case
basis is very difficult.

As previously explained, the odds are stacked
against the activist at the outset. One ap­proach
therefore has been to develop new legal principles
and mechanisms that give bet­ter footing to
sectors of society that have been placed at
an historical disadvantage. This is true in
struggles for urban and rural land reform,
claims to ancestral domain and as­ser­tion
of customary law.

Another common approach is to expose and
oppose the negative effects of development
and commercial projects that entail large-scale
displacement. This approach is used in campaigns
against dam projects, commercial logging,
plantations, mining, etc. The cam­paigns
are usually related to larger issues such
as skewed government priorities, cronyism
and corruption,17
as well as globalization and the role of nonstate
actors such as the World Bank and multinational
corporations.

Another strategy, related to campaigns against
infrastructure and commercial projects, is
to assert related rights, for example, the
right to information and consultation, compensa­tion,
restitution and equal treatment.

Bakun DamCampaigning for the Right to Information,
Consultation and Compensation

The Bakun Dam is a hydroelectric project
of the government of Malaysia in Sarawak.
When completed, the dam will inundate
an area the size of Singapore and will
render 10,000 indigenous people homeless.
When the Bakun Dam was being planned in
the mid-1980s, the people who were going
to be displaced were never consulted or
even informed about the project. They
opposed the forced relocation by a combination
of protest actions, lobbying and campaigning.
Together with concerned NGOs and other
political allies, they raised the issues
of consultation, just compensation, relocation
and right to information.

Due to the concerted actions taken, the
government of Malaysia was forced to shelve
the project in the late 1980s. When the
project was revived in 1993, the government,
through the Bakun Development Committee,
was forced to sit down at the negotiating
table and discuss issues of concern to
the people.

Though the issues are far from settled,
the case highlights the importance of
framing the rights issues in presenting
an opposition to development projects
such as the Bakun Dam project.

Authors: The general structure of this
module is based largely on the writings of Roger
Plant. Johannes ("Babes) Ignacio
contributed substantially to this module; examples
from South Africa were provided by Anthea Billy.

1. The problem
of commercial encroachment is on top of the
problems of landlessness and feudal exploitation
that still exist in many developing countries.

2. Construction
of wharves and the conversion of seas for
commercial navigation interfere with, if they
do not eradicate, traditional fishing communities.
In coastal areas in Manila Bay, commercial
development has displaced fishing communities
and prevents access by fisherfolk to the bay.
In Indonesia, the creation of marine reserves,
construction of bridges to connect islands,
and the creation of industrial estates along
the coast of Java is interfering with the
movements and tradi­tional activities of sea
nomads.

16.International Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, 660
UNTS 195, entered into force 4 Jan.
1969.

17. For
example, problems of land encroachment and
land grabbing by powerful interests; corruption
and manipulation in the titling of land and
maintenance of land records; concessions given
to cro­nies; and exemptions from coverage
of land reform programs.